A Remedy for Anguish
by Scribbler
Summary: [one shot] Waaaay in the future, when none of the problems have been solved, and none of the stories concluded, Wanda and Jean find comfort in each other.


**Disclaimer –** Not mine!

**A/N – **Two things prompted this fic. First, a piece of artwork by Drue-X, which can be found here: https: (slash slash)webspace (dot) utexas(dot) edu/lw385/theoc/sleep(dot) JPG Second wasa comment by George Mikes in his book _How To Be An Alien_: 'Continental people have sex lives. The English have hot water bottles.' Being as I'm English, I felt right niggled by that, I did.

**Continuity – **Waaaay after the end of Season Four. Maybe even a while after the future glimpses at the end of the last episode, too.

**Feedback -** Ooh, that'd be lovely, guv'nah.

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_**A Remedy for Anguish**_

**© Scribbler, March 2005**

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'Making love is the sovereign remedy for anguish.' – from _Birth Without Violence, _by Frédérick Leboyer.

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She isn't ashamed about it. She thinks she's maybe a little sorry – mostly about the way it had to happen – but she isn't ashamed.

Sometimes she feels haunted, like there are shadows at the edges of her mind that have no verbal form. Sometimes she feels free, limitless and uncontrolled. She can lose herself in this … this _thing_.

The picture isn't a particularly beautiful one – bones that stick out too much, stringy hair, eyes ringed by dark blisters of sadness. There's an outline of underlying loss to their bodies. They could break each other, though in different ways. They are strong. No, more than that: they are Strong. They are Powerful.

Even now they fight for dominance, eyes closed, one leg slung on top of the other's. Every so often the one underneath will shift, swinging the balance, reallocating the roles with nothing more than a twitch of muscle. Their hair is messy but not tangled together, clearly showing the division between red, black, and a darker red not found in nature.

Wanda stirs, one arm asleep under the pillow. Her small breasts cushion her the way she's laying, belly nearly flush to the mattress. She cracks an eye, but doesn't smile when she sees that Jean is still there. Jean, who is laying on her back with the sheet drawn up to cover her, face softened by dry sweat and the disarray of her red mane. Wanda's eyes are pale and unreadable, reflecting only the image of the other woman, the vague contours of the bedding, and the corner of the window.

She shifts, right foot nudging over Jean's left knee. Jean murmurs something and blinks with eyes closed.

Seized by suddenness, Wanda speaks. "Jean."

"Hm?"

"Jean."

"What?"

She waits until the green eyes open and fix on her. There's a moment of bleariness, of reluctance to let go of whatever dream she's been having. Jean dreams of Scott a lot – never how he died, only how he lived. She thinks about how he died during the day; the feel of his limp body greasy on her skin when she types, the memory of his blood, red as his visor, etching the way she walks, how she breathes, the deep sighs she utters when she has to deal with all the leadership details he dealt with before. When she sleeps she relives teenage courtship, nuptial jitters, long sultry nights, the simple happiness of sharing her life with him.

Wanda doesn't frown at the knowledge that in sleep she loses her place to a dead man. Instead, she slips one hand out of the warm cocoon. Then she props herself with her other hand buried in her pillow, edging the calf attached to her right foot over Jean's leg. Jean watches dispassionately, allowing Wanda to straddle her. When Wanda tilts her pelvis, silently asking Jean to fuck her, she does so without hesitation. Their gaze never breaks, and their expressions never waver. It's always the same, like some game of chicken they hold amid the sweat and shaking limbs and waves of ecstasy.

They don't make love – not in the conventional sense of the word. They fuck, extensively, violently and remorselessly. What they each think of tends to remain a mystery to the other. Jean is strict about keeping her telepathy to herself with Wanda, just as Wanda is strict with her good behaviour around the X-Men.

She's seen life outside the mansion, and she prefers it here. She has ever since Jean's grief and need to fix things devastated the lies Mastermind placed in her memory, driving her into flight from SHIELD Force, her brother, and everyone else she'd ever associated with them. She keeps herself in dark corners, making no waves, pulling her weight so nobody can say she doesn't. And when night comes she accepts Jean into her bed, where they bury their faces in each other and fall asleep with the scent of sex heavy on the air.

Wanda doesn't understand why Jean chose her. When her life was falling apart, she didn't stretch out her powers and touch any of her friends, her teammates. Instead, broken by the trauma of being in Scott's mind when he died, Jean threw her mind from her body and propelled it into that of someone who had never asked for her help, never needed her help, never _wanted_ her help. She set fire to the demons in Wanda's head, and though the landscape of her mind is now burned and ugly, they melted away to let her see with unobstructed eyes. For that, at least, she lets Jean hide from the world in her bed.

Tonight, eyes wide open, Jean makes low sounds against the curve of Wanda's belly as her hips piston. When Wanda arches, white light searing across her eyeballs, the sounds continue unchanged. Afterward, when she lowers her head to kiss Jean's cheeks, she tastes salty tears and drinks them like wine, then returns the favour by sending Jean on her own journey into heaven.

The digital clock shows the hour. Sated and drowsy, Wanda flops back onto her own pillow. Jean doesn't try to hold her close, doesn't spoon her, or move onto the side of the bed she always sleeps on when they're sharing. This is how it is with them – clinging desperately to each other without ever really touching or connecting.

When Wanda looks over there are a hundred thousand things in Jean's eyes that she can't decipher, while her own are unfalteringly empty. Much of what she feels she internalises and inters under psychological cinders. At her blankness, Jean's expression crumbles briefly into something pained, and for a moment Wanda wishes she _could_ understand. But then Jean's eyes shut, and she's once more on her way to sunny afternoons spent giggling with her husband.

"Jean," Wanda says, reasserting herself once more.

"What?" This time she sounds irritated.

Wanda slips her hand outside the sheets and loosely laces their fingers. Jean opens her eyes again, surprised, but Wanda turns her face away. She feels the stare boring into her neck, but doesn't turn back until the other woman's breathing has deepened and evened into sleep. Only then does she permit herself to close her own eyes.

They are Strong.

But they are also weak.

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FINIS.

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_Do I like reviews? Why yes, I do indeed like reviews. Hint hint. _


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